Every day, we witness animals interacting with their environment in order to survive. From birds perched atop a telephone wire to a pack of dogs chasing a rabbit through the woods, animals are constantly in search of balance within their surroundings. What we may not realize is that by studying these behaviors, we can better understand our own interactions with the world around us and learn how to find balance in our own lives.
Animals bring balance to the world in different ways. These include:
1. Ecological balance
Animals seek to keep the balance of nature through their interactions with the physical world. This can take many forms, including migration, hibernation, and seed dispersal.
Migration is a behavior observed in many animals living in areas that experience seasonal variations in weather. In order to survive these changes, many birds and mammals will migrate from colder regions to warmer regions where they can find more food and avoid harsher conditions.
Hibernation is another way animals help balance nature. Animals spend the majority of their year sleeping, but every once in a while they will wake up and engage in activities that allow them to maintain their body temperature, conserve energy and preserve fat stores. Animals that hibernate often include marsupials, bears, and smaller animals like squirrels.
Seed dispersal is another behavior that animals use to help balance the ecosystem. Plants often grow more slowly near areas where there are trees or other plants that beings can break off pieces of and drop seeds into the soil.
2. Social balance
Animals that live in social groups will often find ways to keep the group in balance with the surrounding environment.
Birds, for example, often use work-trade relationships to help ensure they have enough food while they are contributing to the group. Many other animals utilize specific social structures to help balance their environment.
Some animals will do what they can to maintain a balance within the group while others will do what they can to keep the group in balance with its environment. Examples include pack hunting behaviors (when wolves and other animals trap prey together) and predator-prey relationships (when lions eat zebras or other prey but leave their cattle alone).
3. Balance within the animal’s environment
Animals often have specific behaviors that help them keep the balance of their environment. This can include hiding, fleeing, and building nests as defensive measures to protect themselves when they feel threatened by others in their environment.
Hiding is also used as a behavior to avoid others in the environment. Animals will hide in trees or under rocks when they feel they are being threatened by others or that there is something other animals want from them.
4. Balance within the animal ecosystem
A key aspect of finding balance in the world is having a sense of balance within the individual animal. Many animals have behaviors that help them keep their body in balance with the environment.
Another way that animals find balance is through grooming, which helps them not only maintain physical health but social health as well. Females can also use behaviors like singing and dancing to keep themselves healthy both physically and emotionally.
Bottom line
The importance of animals in their natural world is often overlooked, but it is important to take note of the way that animals interact with their environment in order to learn how to balance our own. The key to finding balance within oneself, and in the world, is self-awareness. We must learn how to identify when we are feeling out of balance so we can make changes that will bring us back into balance. Through this continuous monitoring and awareness, we can begin to develop an awareness of the various ways our environment affects us, and we can take steps to maintain balance in our own lives.
